


Too Many Monsters

by RavenAurelieChoiseau



Category: Frankethan, Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Alpha Ethan, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Victor, Boys In Love, Come Swallowing, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, London, Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Masturbation, Mostly Canon Penny Dreadful background, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Pining, Smut, Top Ethan, Wales, Werewolves, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2019-08-01 22:29:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16293017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenAurelieChoiseau/pseuds/RavenAurelieChoiseau
Summary: Ethan Chandler and Victor Frankenstein are in love. Neither have had the courage to admit it until now, when tragedy and grief has brought them closer.





	1. Just an explanation

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler if you haven't seen the Penny Dreadful series until the very end.  
> 

I don't know why I keep getting errors when I try to create a series on this fic and also edit Chapter 1. I was able to add a new chapter, so Chapter 2 is actually just a revised Chapter 1. I apologize for this but I've been trying to do this for two days and the site is just not cooperating, dammit.  
So please refer to Chapter 2 as the only chapter in this fic but it's been edited. And I apologize for this weirdness on behalf of Archive who have yet to address my technical issue.


	2. To Be Beautiful is to be Almost Dead:  which is really just revised Chapter 1 but why is Archive being weird and not alllowing me to edit my first chapter?!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to edit Chapter 1 and each time I post it goes to a blank screen so I am attempting to circumvent this. I'll delete the contents of Chapter 1 if I'm actually able to upload this revised chapter here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know why I keep getting errors when I try to create a series on this fic and also edit Chapter 1. So please refer to Chapter 2 as the only chapter in this fic but it's been edited today.

A floorboard creaks. It’s rather loud for the silence filling the drawing room. Wood contracting from within the unheated chamber no doubt. Common in a large manor mostly abandoned in winter.  
That room is off limits now. Empty and forlorn.  
No one dares enter except for Ethan, and he’s done so less and less over the past two weeks. He’s been distracted with other… thoughts.  
Last time he crossed the threshold it was to hang a new crucifix on the wall, shortly after the funeral. He tried to position it over the shadow of the previous one. Malcolm asked why.  
“One would say the image burned into the paint would suffice,” Malcolm pointed out. “Isn’t the memory of her enough?”

Ethan felt better replacing it. Vanessa had lamented its absence.  
And no, the memory of her would never be enough.

Vanessa.  
The groan of timber again.  
It’s not a ghost.  
It’s not her ghost, Ethan.

The wolf gazes upward, the grief and exhaustion sliced deeper into his visage than the cut nearly healed on his bearded right cheek.  
He sighs.  
It’s more an exhalation of a tired spirit rather than breath.

The man in the chair opposite him stirs. Ethan appreciates not being alone with his demons. He's been good company.  
Neither could bear the solitude.  
“Is that Sir Malcolm?” Victor sits up to attention. He had dozed off unexpectedly.  
Ethan knows, he’s been watching him slumber sweetly, studying the way his lithe form twitches slightly in his REM state.  
Doctor Frankenstein.

A carriage outside distracts. Hooves on cold cobblestone. A neigh.  
Click clack.  
Both sounds echo in the courtyard like a gunshot.  
Ethan thinks he answers, but he doesn’t. He leans in, towards the slim man. Almost as if he desires to angle into him, hook him like a wriggling fish. Pull him near all wet and thrashing.

A blink. Almond eyes the color of coffee squint.  
There’s a way the sun is catching the doctor’s eyes. Just enough to give them renewed ardor.  
_Are you looking at me with sky or vale, Victor?_

“Mr. Chandler? Did you hear me? Was that Sir Malcolm?”  
His voice is melodic. Ethan smiles, gaze dropping to the man’s mouth.  
Full, dark pink lips hang open just enough so that the top row of his teeth show.  
An invitation.  
Ethan thinks he wants the tip of his tongue to drag there.  
Victor thinks he should have kissed him when he had the chance. Before Sembene had interrupted them. Things might have been so different now.  
Or not at all.

“No, Doctor. Sir Malcolm is resting. It must be the floorboards.” Phantasmic moans of pain now gone but not yet digested?

Victor fills the chair, pressing his back into the soft leather. A hand grips the round, molded tip of the arm. Perhaps if he anchors himself, he’ll prevent his instinct taking over. The one that beckons him to get up and grab Ethan by the collar.  
“I see. That’s good. Though I worry after him. Is he still planning to leave London?”  
Next he’ll lay claim to Ethan's creamy neck. Pull yourself together, old boy.

There’s a wisp of chestnut hair falling over Ethan’s forehead. He fixes it behind his ear and Victor watches. He watches every smooth movement and wonders how those rough hands would feel against his bare skin.  
“I don’t think he will, Doctor. Not after everything that happened.”

"Yes. Indeed."  
Victor shivers. Not like it used to twitch, Victor’s body. Not from the narcotic withdrawal. Just from chill. And want.  
Victor is better now. Swapped one addiction for another.

“Are you cold, Doctor? Shall I put more wood on the fire?” _Shall I hold you? Warm you with my body?_  
The younger man nods. “That would be lovely, thank you.”

Ethan crosses the space between them on a diagonal. He bends to throw more logs on the hearth and the doctor can’t help himself. All his research in anatomy… there is no specimen more perfect than Ethan Chandler. Flawless physique. Musculature in balance with softness. Superlative backside.  
Not to mention character traits. How selfless he is. Protective. Caring.  
Sexy.  
Ethan stokes fire both literally and figuratively. The burn of Victor’s scrutiny makes him half turn, catching the doctor’s admiration over his shoulder.  
Victor shies in shame, biting into his lip with his slightly crooked front teeth.  
Perhaps now is the time. Haven’t they played this game long enough?  
“See somethin’ ya like, Doc?”

Ethan doesn’t say this. He wants to, though. He wants Victor to know how he yearns for him. It’s nothing like what he felt with Dorian or Brona or the countless others left in his wake. Blurred faces reflected in a pool of whiskey-fueled mania.  
No. With Victor it’s different. All-consuming. Sober.

“Is this warm enough, Doctor?”  
“Yes,” Victor barely makes out, lust straining his voice. “Thank you, Mr. Chandler.”

Ethan believed after Brona and Vanessa he could never love like this again… but the young surgeon had planted a seed in his mind that night in the basement. Slowly it had germinated, taking its time weaving its tentacles through him.  
Hedera for his heart disguised in the small frame of a shaky physician.

Ethan’s mind wanders as he sees himself reflected in the flames.  
Nightly Ethan’s flesh is scorched with desire, like a fever that won’t ever break, eyes shut as he tugs on his cock from under rumpled cotton to the rhythm of his racing heart.  
_Victor Victor Victor_ on Ethan’s lips as he stains his sheets.  
If only he knew the doctor does the same.  
Tossing and turning in the small cot like a die, the phantom wolf bearing down on him as his fingers work his rectum. Mouth agape, head thrown back, giving himself to the invisible man. Victor squeezes and twists his member. His desire swells like the orgasmic wave swells within him before it breaks, hot, damp and sticky on his chest.

Ethan finishes in a whisper and Victor finishes in a cry and neither know (though perhaps they suspect).

The wolf rises from the fireplace, positions himself back in his chair. He makes it a point to stare.  
Victor is beautiful when he sleeps.  
Victor is beautiful when he breathes.  
Victor is beautiful. Full stop. Ethan can’t tear his eyes from him.

The young doctor wonders if the wolf’s attentions are of a more lustful nature. There’s a glint to his gaze now… it wasn’t there a moment ago. Was he able to peek into Victor’s dream?

The young doctor fiddles nervously with the strap of his suspender.  
“Mr. Chandler, is everything alright? You seem… pensive.”

That’s a difficult question to answer. “I was wonderin’, Doc. What color are your eyes? I can’t understand if they’re blue or green?”  
_I’ve stared at them long enough and yet I can’t discern._

Victor is taken aback. Not a question he was expecting. His heart flutters just a bit as a blush rises to his cheek.  
_Ethan’s been looking at my eyes._

Victor clears his drying throat. His right hand grips the chair harder. “Well, it’s difficult to say. My mother always said they were blue but between the pigmentation in the stroma of the iris and the scattering of reflective light… I suppose both. It just depends.”

Ethan puts two fingers to his right temple. “On what?” The t is silent, lost in the drawl.  
Victor swallows hard. “On interpretation. Lighting. My mood I suppose.”  
The wolf bites. “And what’s your mood, Doctor?” One eyebrow raises into an arch.

Victor crosses his hands in front of him. He takes a deep breath, which makes his chest inflate. His large, round eyes moisten with emotion.  
Ethan has seen no one cry so beautifully.  
“Muffled desperation. Longing. I desire someone I can’t have.”

Ethan smirks. “I see. How magnificent and yet tragic. Who is the object of your desire, Doctor?”  
Ethan knows it’s not Lily. He heard all about her. How she left London in a hurry after a long disappearance. Poor Victor was beside himself in worry.  
“Lily?”  
The doctor guffaws. “No, Mr. Chandler. Not Lily. I fear my cousin will never return to London again. Her experience here, at the end, was too… traumatic. I was not the best host. Far from it, actually. I take full responsibility for my failure.”  
_Ethan you know nothing of the truth behind Lily. My failure is as a human being._

Ethan takes the bait. He needs to know because his own soul is in torment.  
“Who, then, Doctor? Whose visage keeps you up at night? Who makes your blood race faster?” Ethan can hear Victor’s thundering through his veins.

“I’ve done terrible things, Mr. Chandler. Vile. My spirit is doomed, I fear. Marked. I don’t know if I deserve love.”  
Victor takes to his feet, searching for answers beyond the window. He pulls the curtain with a trembling finger and for a moment fears seeing his Creature there, sentinel outside the manor.  
But even his own abomination was so disgusted by him that he’s gone.

The fire crackles and splits a log.  
“We’ve all done unspeakable things. But we’re creatures who can be forgiven. We all deserve to be loved, Doctor. Even the most wretched.”

“Do you truly believe that, Mr. Chandler?”  
Ethan follows to where the doctor stands. “I do, Victor.”

 _He used my name._  
The hair on the back of Victor’s neck stands on end. The air moved when Ethan spoke and Victor’s stomach clenches. He turns to face him.  
“Who makes your blood race faster, Victor?” Ethan whispers, lower lip glistening.  
He already knows the answer, it’s in the wrinkle of Victor’s brow and the single tear that rolls down the apple of his cheek.  
_Jesus Victor you cry so beautifully it’s almost a sin._

Victor thought he would stumble over his words, but he doesn’t. Liberating himself of this will somehow calm his restless soul.  
“I hunger for you, Ethan. Though in my mind’s eye you are unattainable, like a glass of water when you thirst which is always just barely out of reach.”

Ethan advances one step. “Victor…” he sibilates.  
“My heart won’t give me peace. I ask you, Ethan, will my fingers ever graze the forbidden glass or am I destined to die of love’s dehydration? Do I deserve you at all?!”

One hand reaches, a fingertip tracing Victor’s chiseled jawline. His light stubble is prickly but pleasant. “You know what I am, Victor?”  
It’s not really a query.

The doctor lifts his chin, his left hand drawing Ethan’s finger to his lips. He sucks.  
Ethan moans.  
“Yes,” he murmurs back. “And I don’t care. I love you for your darkness and your light.”

Ethan inches until he’s almost touching Victor’s pouty lips. Coffee and Ivy… almond and oval. Pupils blown in lust.  
“You can open your heart to me. So why can’t I love you despite your shortcomings?”  
The doctor’s breath hitches. “You don’t know the horrors weighing on my conscience, Ethan.”

They study each other. Victor’s digit thumbs the scar on Ethan’s fuzzy cheek.  
“I’m afraid to reveal my true self to you. I fear you won’t be capable of feeling anything for me after.”  
The wolf shakes his head.  
“Tell me. Don’t tell me. It doesn’t matter. I fell in love with you for _you_. I’m the last person to ever judge someone’s indiscretions. Let me love you, Victor. You deserve it. I deserve it. I won’t let us believe otherwise.”

The doctor is almost convinced, but he needs to exorcise one last doubt.  
“What happened with Dorian, Ethan? Why would you ever choose me over him?!”

The wolf cups his face in his large, warm palms. He finds Victor’s jealousy endearing.  
“Dorian was one night of passion, born of heartbreak and spirits. He meant nothing to me, and I to him. It was a fling. A fluke.”  
Ethan places a chaste kiss on his thirsty lips.  
  
Ethan’s mouth is silk, sends electricity through the young man, his sex stirring.  
Victor wriggles away, as if he were already hooked onto Ethan's line. Breathlessly incredulous, he half-turns.  
“What if we’re both cursed? What if we’re not meant to feel such rousing emotion? I’ve always prized myself as a man of science but now all that is on my mind-”  
  
“Shut up, Victor," Ethan interjects. "Just love me.”

Victor lets go. He crashes into the wolf, chest to chest. Their mouths hollow almost immediately, Ethan’s tongue making good on his promise to linger a moment against Victor’s bunny teeth.  
Their caresses are a conversation. Seeking approval, receiving access.  
Interrogating. Probing. Gathering intelligence.

Victor finds himself underneath Ethan, whose mouth is puckered on his right nipple as he rips open his shirt. The nub is hard against the tip of Ethan’s muscle.  
“Oh Heavenly Father,” Victor whimpers.  
Ethan’s long hair is cocoa strings around the doctor’s fingers, like a bow tied there to remind him to love.

“Fuck, Victor…” Ethan scents him, a low growl escaping his throat. Victor smells good enough to eat. Lemon, bergamot, and rosemary.

Victor gasps when the wolf’s nose tracks his hairline down past his belly button. His erection is stiff against the fabric of his trousers, twitching when Ethan bites lightly over the bulge.  
“Oh God,” the doctor bucks up into the contact.  
“I want you, Victor.” It’s a statement of fact.  
“Please, Ethan,” the man begs. “Please don’t stop.”

Victor gently nudges, the wolf licking his cock from ruddy tip to his balls once he's undone the trousers and tugged down his drawers.  
He takes all of him, wide against the groove of his muscle. It doesn't take much for the young doctor to find himself begging.  
“Oh Ethan, Oh God… Please. I’m near orgasm. I want you inside me. Please.”

The wolf breaks, hovering over the deep mauve crown of Victor’s member. He surveys the room. Nothing that could act as a lubricant.  
“Victor, have you ever…?”  
Stormy eyes gaze down at his lover. “No, Ethan. I haven’t. I…just my fingers.”

Ethan kisses him on the satiny warmth of his thigh. “I can’t. Not here, not like this. I’d only hurt you. Tonight, though. I promise. Your first time needs to be memorable. We need time.”  
The doctor accepts, smiling. The lilt to his head and the sparkle to his eye betrays his enthusiasm.  
“Tonight then. Thank you. I knew you were a kind man.”  
"Hush now..."  
Ethan wraps Victor’s cock in warmth, returning to his ministrations. He uses one hand to pleasure Victor, the other unbuttoning his own pants. A fist later and the wolf tugs his aching cock to the time of his dips.

Victor is left breathless, panting and writhing in ecstasy. “Oh God, Ethan… faster, I beg you. Faster…”  
The pressure builds, Ethan can feel the doctor tense.  
When the first wave of semen coats his tongue, the wolf growls. Victor is near tears, forgetting himself and shouting Ethan’s name repeatedly.  
His own member is near release. He pulls off, chin soaked in saliva and cum, and smashes his mouth into Victor’s.  
The doctor reaches blindly for his cock, whispering “Please, let me…”

It’s a split. A tear in time and space. All the suppressed longing, the pining. It’s too much.  
Ethan weeps, wrapped in the smaller man’s quivering arms when it's over. His head cradled against the doctor's welcoming chest, he listens to his pulse.  
Their secretions cake as the dyspnea subsides.

“I love you, Victor.” The words are more a hum.  
The doctor grins, smoothing down his lover’s tresses with long strokes of the hand.  
“I love you, too, Ethan. Let us walk into the night, together, thee and me. If we are truly damned, let’s be damned together. I'm weary of being lonely."

The wolf recites something he heard once. “Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.”  
Victor suspires. “That’s beautiful.”

Ethan counts in his head. “There’s a full moon in 7 days, Victor. I will need your help. You’re going to have to cage me. I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”  
Soft russet eyes blink up at him.  
The doctor traces a circle into Ethan’s shoulder.  
“What if you could learn to control it? To tame the beast?”  
“I’ve tried. All these years, I can’t. It takes over completely.”

Victor shifts, getting more comfortable. “What if someone could teach you?”  
Ethan sits up, gaze wide in curiosity.  
“What do you mean?”  
“I have a secret. You’re not the first of your kind I’ve met. I have a cousin. He lives in Wales. He’s like you, Ethan, except he’s learned to control it. If you wanted to, we could visit him. Leave tomorrow morning. He could assist you, teach you discipline.”

This could be life-changing. The wolf trembles in excitement. “He would do this for me?”  
“Yes. I’m his favorite cousin. He despises my brothers because they used to torment him when he was a child. I was always kind to him. And perhaps he would take comfort in knowing he isn’t alone. That there are others like him.”

Ethan chuckles, swallowing Victor in a warm embrace. “Okay, let’s do it. Let’s go.”  
“Excellent, I’ll wire him this evening to let him know. And while I’m out…”  
The doctor reddens tremendously. “While I’m out, I’ll stop at the chemist and get lubricant.”  
The wolf pecks him on the nose. “Victor, you are such a little minx.”

**Author's Note:**

> General background info taken from wikis. The title of the story and of the chapter are from songs on the Penny Dreadful Season 1 soundtrack.  
> Ethan quotes a poem from Dylan Thomas.  
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
